UK news

The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, is to retire in September 2013, it was announced tonight at the United Synagogue council meeting.

Despite some speculation that he would not be replaced, Simon Hochauser, President of the US, made clear that there would be a successor. He also revealed that focus groups will be used during the recruitment process.

Speculation will now begin in earnest as to his successor, and the precise method by which he will be appointed.

Members of Britain’s Jewish youth movements have launched a campaign to challenge the government’s position on the tuition fees rise and gap years.

Bnei Akiva (BA) and the Federation of Zionist Youth (FZY) started the “Mind the Gap” petition out of concern that the prospect of paying fees of up to £9,000 would discourage students from taking a year out before university.

Both movements, along with several other Anglo-Jewish organisations, run popular schemes taking British school-leavers to volunteer and study in Israel.

A group of politicians, writers and activists including Baroness Jenny Tonge, Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman and playwright Caryl Churchill have sent a letter calling for the government to drop its planned change to the law on universal jurisdiction.

The letter, published in the Guardian newspaper today, was signed by more than 50 people including 21 MPs.

The group opposes legislation contained within the Police Reform and Social Responsibility bill which would require the Director of Public Prosecutions to sign off any arrest warrants for visiting foreign dignitaries.

A respected Jewish psychologist fighting his two-and-a-half year sentence for serious financial crimes suffers from a "persecution mania", the Court of Appeal heard on Friday.

Yehuda Crammer, 65, who was made bankrupt several years ago, is serving his jail sentence after admitting two counts of concealing property, imposed at Manchester Crown Court in June.

Crammer, of Danesway, Prestwich, Manchester, has already failed in one attempt to win a reduction in the sentence, but his lawyers were at the Court of Appeal in London on Friday to begin a second attempt.

British Ort, the Jewish education charity, has helped puzzled police uncover the history of a German refugee who died alone in his London flat.

The charity was contacted last week by the missing persons' department at Marylebone police station, which was searching for the next-of-kin of Franz Joseph Nebel. Mr Nebel's body was found by police in his home in October.

When searching his Maida Vale flat, police came across an article from Germany about a group visit to Berlin in 1989.

London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced a £50,000 grant to the London Jewish Forum to be spent on promoting mainstream integrated sports in the Jewish community.

The grant is part of £2.4 million funding from his Olympic Sports Legacy programme, for 18 projects across the capital to help increase participation in sports.

The London Jewish Forum, on behalf of the Jewish Committee for the London Games (JCLG), will now raise another £50,000 to match the grant for its Enable programme, which aims to promote disabled and non-disabled integrated sports.

A granddaughter of Shoah survivors may be forced to repay compensation because Germany believes she owes tax on her family's pre-war property.

Judy Sherwood's family owned an East Berlin apartment which was confiscated by the Nazis. Her grandparents died in the Holocaust, but their six children escaped, fleeing to North and South America, Israel and the UK.